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"Flaming fire flakes! Best in town."
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Bye!
I’m going to be switching to an unnamed account so I can have a fresh tumblr account to use, all my sideblogs will also become inactive after this.
Goodbye :)
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Fanfic idea: Zuko has to figure out how to change everyone back before losing his marbles. Also, can you imagine if they do change back and remember Zuko being super soft with them?
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Gear: Ceremonial raccoon headpiece
This headpiece is used in an annual Southern Water Tribe ceremony to celebrate nature. This ceremony usually takes place before the winter hunt when the hunters collect meat and pelts for the upcoming winter season. The raccoon headpiece is worn by a hunter who asks nature to grant him a bountiful hunt, and then places an offering of food (or equivalent) into a large bonfire. After he finishes, he passes the headpiece to the next person who repeats this until all the hunters in the tribe have participated.
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The art for this guy looks so wierd lmo
Character: Nightmare Ozai
Although Aang has not personally met the Firelord, he imagines that he’s a grape-eating, math-loving, 2-ton giant in his nightmares.
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ATLA Martial Arts: The Dancing Dragon Pt. 3
While I’d been wanting to do a post on The Dancing Dragon for a while now— and I’ve received many requests to analyze it— I found myself procrastinating due to how meticulously the form was shown within the show. Fortunately, Sifu Kisu has actually written quite a bit of information about the creation and finer points of the form’s movements, so his descriptions will add some much needed depth to my more novice and surface-level observations. This will be a four-part series.
5th Movement: Shooting Arrow Stance with Double Downward Blocks
The fifth movement is more defense-oriented; this time pairing the Shooting Arrow Stance with a double low block. As mentioned in a previous post, the shooting arrow is used primarily to evade high and jumping kicks. The double downward blocks further protect the combatant by, well, blocking any low kicks directed at the fighter, particularly any attacks aimed at the groin area.
6th Movement: Bow Stance with a Single Punch
The sixth movement is another bow stance, this time paired with a single punch. To quote my previous post,
“For this stance, the lead foot is pointed straight ahead, with the lead leg bent at a 90 degree angle. The trailing foot is angled outward at a 45 degree angle, with the heel lined up with the heel of the leading foot. This results in a “lunging” motion that drives the back leg into the ground and greatly increases the power of any frontward punch. The weighting of the stance should also be 70% on the front leg and 30% on the back leg to allow for quick kicks from the rear foot. Overall, the Bow Stance is well-suited for attacking.”
It’s worth noting that Aang emulates this stance almost perfectly from the Dancing Dragon statue on his first try. His posture, hand placement, and angling are nearly identical to the referenced pose.
In contrast, Zuko’s stance has some pretty noticeable mistakes: He does a horizontal punch instead of a vertical one, he keeps his limbs straight and front-facing instead of angling them appropriately, and he points his face downwards instead of upwards.
These are actually really nice character details, when you take into account that…
While Zuko is a very skilled martial artist, Aang is considered to be a prodigy who grasps kinesthetic information more immediately than most people. Consider how quickly Aang was able to understand the movements illustrated in the waterbending scroll.
Zuko’s form is generally tighter, sharper, and more aggressive than what the Dancing Dragon actually calls for. This is because he’s doing a very “strict” interpretation of Northern Shaolin (Firebending) movements, hence why his stance is much closer to the real life examples. Whereas Sifu Kisu himself states that the Dancing Dragon is “based on movement essences from Northern Shaolin”; in other words, this is the martial art when stripped to its barest essentials.
This also ties back to the Sun Warriors’ belief that “modern” firebending has evolved to be more destructive than it was originally intended to be.
Since Zuko grew up learning “modern” firebending, he essentially has to “unlearn” what he was previously taught to properly recreate the form. Aang hasn’t had much training in firebending so he doesn’t have the same sort of barriers to learning the Dancing Dragon.
Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^
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Cultural Practices: Medicine in ATLA
I thought I’d do a quick overview of the medicines and treatments that we see employed in ATLA. This post will be a little different from the usual, as it’ll include a few personal anecdotes from yours truly and a content warning since some medical practices can be a bit gruesome to describe.
Chi Pathways
Also known as the meridian system or jīngluò (經絡), these are the metaphysical “veins” through which chi flows. Although modern science rejects the existence of the meridian system, belief in chi pathways forms the basis for many treatments within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Cinobufagin
Also known as Huachansu (华蟾素) or “Chinese Toad Essence”, it refers to the practice of using secretions from the skin of Asiatic toads for medicinal purposes. The chemical, cinobufagin, found in these secretions has been known to have many beneficial effects in humans:
Pain Relief
Strengthens Immunity
Cancer Cell Suppression & Reduction
In TCM, cinobufagin is extracted by drying toad skin and steeping it in hot water, essentially using it to brew a medicinal ”tea”. However, thanks to modern science, cinobufagin can now also be taken via pill or injection.
For obvious reasons, Aang couldn’t exactly be shown drying and skinning pond critters to make hot froggy juice. Can’t say how effective sucking on frozen frogs is for curing the cold, but I’m sure someone out there has tried it. I will say, I never related harder to Aang then when the herbalist tells him to go gather frogs for medicine and he just looks bewildered. My grandparents were strong believers in the health benefits of toad skin and used to have me hunt for them during fishing trips.
Fire Cupping
When Zuko takes Iroh to a local Earth Kingdom clinic to cure his uncle’s poisoning, fire cupping or báguàn (拔罐) is briefly shown as another treatment available there. Here is a quick description of the process from the Wikipedia page:
Fire cupping involves soaking a cotton ball in almost pure alcohol. The cotton is clamped by a pair of forceps and lit via match or lighter, and, in one motion, placed into the cup and quickly removed, while the cup is placed on the skin. The fire uses up all the oxygen in the cup which creates a negative pressure inside the cup. The cup is then quickly placed onto the body and the negative pressure “sucks” the skin up.
According to TCM, the purpose of cupping is to dislodge stagnant blood and encourage circulation, thereby improving chi flow to cure common ailments. My headcanon is that this treatment is a specialty of the Fire Nation cause, you know, fire cupping. It also ties into the importance of body heat in firebending and would be a pretty decent treatment for a chi-blocked body; I also headcanon chi-blocking as having roots in firebending.
I have second hand experience with fire cupping. My mother once tried fire cupping on my dad but I think she might have overheated the cups because he ended up getting pretty big blisters on his back. You can imagine what happened when he accidentally rolled over on to his back while sleeping…
Moral of the Story: Please leave all medical treatments, both traditional and modern, to trained professionals.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is probably the most well-known type of TCM in the English-speaking world. It is the practice of inserting very thin metal needles into the skin along the meridian system to improve chi flow. As far as I know, porcupine needles have never been used. ;-) Acupuncture is typically used to treat various types of body pain and stiffness.
Surprisingly, I actually don’t have any real life experience with acupuncture. As far as headcanon goes, I imagine this might be a specialty of the Earth Kingdom once metalbending becomes more commonplace.
In the near future, I’ll probably make a post detailing other traditional Asian and Indigenous medicines that would work well in the Avatar world.
Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^
https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture
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Character: Headmaster
He has one of the most important jobs in the Fire Nation - or at least he thinks so - maintaining order and discipline so that young Fire Nation minds can be properly molded. Before he was headmaster, this man was a drill sergeant in the army and much of what he learned there, he uses today. Any disorderly child must be immediately dealt with, in other words, sent to the coal mines for “rehabilitation.” Nothing makes him happier than when a father talks about punishing an unruly child.
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Character: Merchants
(Beetle-headed, traveling) These desert-dwellers pre-date all other tribes in the Si Wong Desert. Legend has it that their beetle-like headpieces date back to ancient times when their ancestors lived underground and survived the attacks of giant gilacorns (see animals) by mimicking the appearance of the nasty-tasting Sour Beetles – the only creatures on the desert floor not palatable to gilacorns.
Their opportunistic streak and flexibility help make them skillful traders – they have an uncanny ability to see saleable potential in almost anything presented to them. Its their rather easygoing nature that makes them every tribes first choice with whom to trade and swap.
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they’re SO MEAN TO HIM
Character: Bully Guard
A mean, tough tyrant who likes to intimidate and browbeat the prisoners. It’s no secret that the Bully Guard lives alone and is not much of a ladies’ man. He has no real friends and no one to talk to. As a result, he likes to take out his personal frustrations by picking on the prisoners- the only people he can have some control and power over. Underneath that tough, intimidating exterior, he really is just a lonely little man.
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jeez this cat is old
Creature: Miyuki
This is the Herbalist’s cat whose special diet of herbs has kept her alive for over 28 years (that’s 97 cat years). And she’s still going strong.
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Theory
Theory: Jeong Jeong got the two scars on his face from Zhao
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Tiny Zuko!
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Tarrlok v Korra was a cool fight
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I made two others but the files didn’t go through properly and they don’t work :(
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